The Champions Rikkai
by Roving Kite
Summary: Immediately after Nationals, Renji gets a haircut. One-shot involving Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi as first-years.


**The Champions Rikkai**

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o

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Few enough people noticed it, but underneath his hat Genichirou's hair was horribly thick and unruly. The sheer humidity of the summer air – entering the room from the lone open window – caused it to clump in all-too-familiar spikes, thick and bristly and irigid/i enough that Seiichi had, on a similar occasion, wondered aloud about the likelihood of impaling various objects on them and having them stick.

Looking at Renji, though, Genichirou thinks that, at the very least, _his_ hair was still all attached to his head.

"Sanada," says Seiichi, crossly. "Stop moving around so much. A lot of good 'Immovable Like a Mountain' is going to do, if you can't keep it up for ten minutes at a time."

Genichirou would very much like to retort that he'd like to see Seiichi stand perfectly still for ten minutes while holding a large and metal-framed mirror, and that nobody could claim that he hadn't had _Immovable Like a Mountain_ down perfectly during the finals the previous morning, when it had counted. He doesn't, though, because Seiichi is right. He shouldn't wriggle the mirror too much, if only because it just might, in turn, make Seiichi accidentally wriggle the pair of scissors he's currently holding half an inch from Renji's eyes.

Seiichi, just as aware of this, is inwardly relived when Genichirou locks his arms as rigidly as those of a statue. He gives a small nod of approval, in the hopes that Genichirou would stop looking as though he were smouldering to himself. It doesn't have much of an appreciable effect, though.

"'You're crazy for letting him this close to your head with scisscors'", Renji says suddenly. "Is what Genichirou's probably thinking at the moment."

Genichirou glares, and thinks that maybe Renji should try holding the mirror next time, too.

And it occurs to Seiichi that, even in a completely bare room of an impeccably tidy house, Renji probably could have – had he really wanted to – found a way to set up some sort of contraption that would have held the mirror in place and spared Genichirou his current task.

But Renji probably read both those thoughts, too.

"You _are_," Genichirou mutters, at the same time Seiichi sighs, "Renji, I thought I told you not to talk."

* * *

It was through a series of coincidences and one last spur-of-the-moment decision that, in the middle of a bright, sweltering August afternoon, Renji had ended up on a stool in the middle of the only room of Seiichi's house conducive to haircutting (all the other rooms had carpet in them), wrapped from the neck down in a sheet of plastic that Seiichi had cut off an old umbrella.

The coincidences all occurred in two weeks leading up to the National championship, during which Renji had intended to have his hair cut all along, but was always sidetracked at the last minute. All three of them had had their hands full then, drawing up and reworking lineups in addition to managing a club full of senpai who were growing more and more nervous as Nationals neared.

As a result, there hadn't been one afternoon in those two week when Renji _hadn't_ been busy – compiling data from rival schools, spotting his teammates during practice, or else being asked by a particularly vindictive and irritated Seiichi to play a practice match again their third-year captain, a match where Renji had free rein to use any means necessary to remind the latter that he didn't know the first thing about strategy, on or off the courts.

The one or two free afternoons they did have, they were much too exhilarated - much too aware that they were caught in this _together_ - for Renji to think about taking his leave and catching the bus downtown to a barbershop. As far as he remembered, they ended up spending that time catching cicadas in the grounds behind the school.

The spur-of-the-moment decision occurred when the three of them met an hour ago at Seiichi's house. Nationals had ended spectacularly the day before, the trophy and the champion's flag having been safely locked in the clubhouse at school, and their medals meticulously hung on the walls of their bedrooms at home.

An extended celebration had already occurred the previous night at Genichirou's house, and what they had planned was more of a strategy session. Except that, once it started, it became very quickly apparent that neither of them were in the right mentality to sit and review things calmly, not yet.

And that was when Seiichi had glanced rather contemplatively at Renji, straightened himself up from where he'd been sprawled out on the floor, and announced, "Well, let's cut your hair!"

His eyes had lit up, Genichirou had noticed, exactly the way they had their first day at Rikkai, when he'd walked up to Genichirou and said, in that blunt and outright way of his, _Hmm, you're here, too, Sanada? Let's see if we can make the tennis club do things right, then._

That was probably what made even Genichirou agree to the idea, although he was typically, out of all of them, the most adverse to spur-of-the-moment things. Not like Renji, he thought, who was perfectly calm and reasonable most of the time, but, who, at the most crucial moments, tended to be willing to go along with even the riskiest of schemes. And would probably later claim that it had all been in the name of data, or something like it.

Just the thought of those medals, though, had made the mirror seem ten pounds lighter.

* * *

"You also told me not to open my eyes," replies Renji, now, as he does just that and levels them at the mirror. They meet those of Seiichi, who is hovering half a foot behind his head and frowning. "But it looks like you're done?"

"I'm not, no," says Seiichi absently. He casts a critical eye over Renji's hair while tapping the scissors lightly against his own chin. "I thought I'd just cut it down to how long Sanada's is, but I guess your hair isn't near as thick or bristly as his. It doesn't have the same shape to it."

He runs a hand through Renji's hair – soft, fine, hazelish brown under the August sun – and ruffles it. "See, it droops. Just like branches from a willow tree, hmm?"

Genichirou, who had been maybe just the slightest bit insulted at his hair being called thick and bristly, put this aside and groans at the horrible pun.

Renji says, "I think it looks more like a mushroom."

"I'll fix it," says Seiichi, as if coming to a decision. "I'll cut it short enough that it doesn't droop, which shouldn't be much shorter than ihere/i" – he taps the edge of the scissors against an imaginary line halfway up Renji's forehead – "and then layer it a little, cut it a little shorter on the bottom and near the edges, so it doesn't end up plastered against your head."

"That's too vague," Genichirou cuts in at once. "Renji, at least make him sketch out something and stick to it."

"It'd take too long," Seiichi counters, rather bossily, already rummaging for a comb to fix the part of Renji's hair that he'd just ruffled. "Where would Rikkai be if we were all plans and no action?"

Genichirou hmphs. "Our captain this year was all action and no plans. Look where that got _him_."

"I trust Seiichi," Renji says, simply. He's smiling and probably would have been shaking his head in that dryly amused way of his, had Seiichi not been attacking him with the comb. His eyes meet Geniichirou's over the edge of the mirror, and they ask, _He's already set his mind on this. Do you really think you can him to give it up?_

Sometimes, Genichirou thinks, Renji is too accommodating of people for his own good. He would tell Renji this, except that his friend has already been ordered to close his eyes again, and Genichirou wisely takes this as his own cue to return to being, for all intents and purposes, a mirror stand.

Seiichi takes a cautious snip of a wisp of hair to the left of Renji's forehead. "See, it doesn't droop when it's shorter."

He cuts again. "Now to make it stick out a little more."

Another few snips. "Not bad, right?" And another. "Ah...oops."

Genichirou does shake the mirror at seeing what Seiichi has done. Very badly, at that. "TARUNDORU!!"

Renji opens his eyes slightly, and then finds himself raising both eyebrows at the sight. Genichirou thinks that he still looks too calm for his own good, but at least it does take him a few seconds to find his voice.

When he does, he says, mock-formally and obviously trying not to laugh, "A little less artistic license, please, Seiichi?"

Seiichi laughs and smacks Renji in the back of the head with his free hand. His own hair bounces, curly and wild and just downright _strange_ in that, in the blaring mid-afternoon sun, it stays the color of the fieriest of stars.

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A.N.: Originally written as a belated birthday fic for Yukimura. Hopefully this has been a successful attempt at something lighthearted and fluffy. :P


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